Hi All,
I'd like to open up a discussion around compliant mechanisms and whether the tools that we have in Inventor, namely Shape Generator and Nastran In-CAD, could be used to help steer these types of designs. If there are other options outside of Inventor then please feel free to share these - ultimately the goal is to design compliant mechanisms better, but also be mindful this is the Inventor Forum. The subject of Compliant Mechanisms is fairly new to me and will be to others, so I would gladly hear from anyone with experience in this field, especially in regards to the design aspect.
I've used shape generator for many years and one thing that often gets overlooked is the Objective field right at the top of the Shape Generator Settings window. Question for Autodesk: Was the intention to have different objectives? Is it correct that as of 2024.2, the current selection cannot be changed or are there addins that open up new options?
Shape Generator requires the part to only have a single Solid Body so it's perhaps difficult to include flexible linkage elements like the butt hinge (door hinge) with torsional spring which would commonly be used when trying to figure out the kinematics.
The other major limitation of Shape Generator at the moment is that only a single load case can be examined at a time. I'm aware of the notion/mindset of just inputting the worst case loads, but this is pretty short sighted as it's only applicable in certain situations.
Cheers,
Frank.
